We Have To Stop Meeting Like This
Summary: (July 2031) "Oh, smurf, not *you* again..." Zurich, Switzerland Often referred to as the "Garden City on the Lake", Zurich is also the most important commercial and economic center in Switzerland, the capital of high finance. Divided by the scenic River Limmat and nestled on the edge of Lake Zurich, it is a bustling metropolis with many new universities, institutions, and other modern construction, but also with a wealth of restored historic buildings such as the centuries-old St. Peter's Church, elegant guildhouses, and turn-of-the-century patrician mansions with their perfectly manicured gardens. Distant, snowy mountains overlook the lake, clearly reflected in its still blue depths. Obvious exits: Northeast NE leads to Black Forest, Germany. Northwest NW leads to Paris, France. Southeast SE leads to Rome, Italy. East E leads to Budapest, Hungary. Fly Up Smokestack arrives from Black Forest, Germany to the northwest. Smokestack has arrived. Dee-Kal has a creative streak today. Why she keeps returning to Eastern Europe is anyone's guess. Perhaps to ensure no more marauding Decepticons beat up the trees. Or perhaps because the EDC affiliated bases is full of humans who *might* need helping out. One day. Dee-Kal has a pile of chalk rocks with her as she sits in the Swiss answer to the Black Forest, pondering a rocky cliff. She also has a pile of coal. Yes. COAL. Dee-Kal looks across the valley at a part of the city. She picks up a hunk of coal, grasping it in her entire hand. Looks at cliff. Looks at city. Looks at cliff. City, cliff... Did someone mention marauding Decepticons? In Eastern Europe? Then that would almost certainly be Smokestack, commander inconspicuous himself. He's been in this area for a few days, remaining in industrial areas by day, stationary and with his furnace choked down to cut off the smoke, and flying low by night, recording and detailing the various ancient structures of Switzerland's heartland. So far, he's managed to get away with it. It's likely he'd be stationary still, except for the fact that a Cybertronian transmission came from near his resting place, and one that seemed familiar. He considered his options. He'd learned a good deal, and nothing would disappear if he was forced to leave and come back in a few years. Therefore, in a spirit of inquiry, he transformed into his primary mode and rose into the air, a low flying shadow across the land. To see the Junkion near the point the transmission had come from did not surprise him; the femme seemed to be spending nearly as much time scouting this region as he was. What did surprise him was the coal. Settling onto the cliff a conversational distance from her, he rumbled "Expecting me?" Scratch-scratch scrape, tap tap, scratch-tap-tap. Up, down. Up, down-down-down. Black marks transfer to the basalt. Then a large black thing obscures her view. "Oh, smurf, not *you* again..." she grumbles. "Will you *move*?" she pouts. "KUDASAI?" which is Japanese for please as a sort of 'if you please' Dee-Kal waves her hand sideways at him irritably. "How can I smurf if you are blocking my view?" She resumes marking the cliff with sketchlike lines. She seemed to be using it to draw with, Smokestack observes. Stepping away wordlessly from the Junkion, he nonetheless remarked after a minute "You cross my path more often than chance alone should account for. Have you been tracking my movements?" Dee-Kal says, "Humph." She continues sketching the city quarter. "Only slightly. Somebody has to see that you do not enslave the citizens of Europe or force them to work together for a common goal instead of being divided all the time." Hrm. "I shall have to be more careful in my movements, clearly. A reasonable concern. Lord Galvatron has demanded more slaves to work on the homeworld, and they must be procured from somewhere." Smokestack looked out over the lake, speaking calmly and without particular emphasis, as though discussing things of no great importance. Dee-Kal swaps coal for chalk and bashes it a bit to get a clean white. The little Junkion scrapes and scratches with this, and immediately the drawing has highlights. When he makes reference to slaves, however, she throws the chalk at the back of his head, sharply. The chalk bounces off the back of his helm with a metallic ringing sound, leaving an off-white scuff on the metal. Smokestack half turns to look over one shoulder, to see if any more serious attacks were forthcoming. "Did that improve your mood?" he inquires. The chalk goes bong on the back of his head. The young Junkette scowls hotly. "If I catch you even *smurfing* any notions of 'harvesting humans', I will do far worse than smurf chalk at you!" She emphasises the point by throwing a couple of chunks of coal at him. It's probably obvious what he'll do with THOSE, but perhaps she doesn't realise. Coal bounces off his face. His eyes narrow faintly, but his tone remains detached as he turns fully to face her, arms half folded across the circular boiler plate of his upper chest. "I do what must be done for the survival and defence of the homeworld. For the first time in millennia, there is a presentable opportunity to rebuild something of what has been lost. This system offers plentiful resources, this world offers refined metals and labour, and the homeworld orbits a bright star sufficient to begin replenishing energy reserves. Whatever small, brief lives we may disrupt, we will do as we find necessary to rebuild." Dee-Kal adds to her drawing with more sooty lines, then throws another lump of coal at his face. This time she aims more precisely and throws less sharply. "Slavery..? You can smurf labour from any quarter if you pay them. You do not need to *enslave* Earth people for that..!" Can he catch..? Will he try? His left hand moves in front of his face and seizes the lump, parting his lips and swallowing the coal to fall into his internal furnace and be converted into energon fuel. Unmoved, he asks "Earth people do not work willingly for Decepticons. Any that tried would be attacked by the other human governing bodies. Humans do not work as hard for payment as they do when forced, and finally, what would you expect them to be paid with? All resources, all energy we possess must be given to the homeworld. There is none to spare for the recompense of human workers in their thousands. We do not give away our technology: arming our enemies would be foolish. They would not work for us, they would not work hard enough for us, and we have nothing to spare to give them. Force is the final remedy to these problems." It's fairly easy to amuse a Junkion. And Smokestack's turns of phrase, disrupt not destroy, plus the fact that the black behemoth seems, if not obviously gregarious, then fairly placid when he sees no threat; she notes too that he has at least been studying this planet and absorbing some of its history and culture. Well, history, anyway. She hefts another lump of coal, aims and throws, gently. "I hope at least that you would treat them fairly and" *THROW* "feed them!" she adds, one optic narrowed as she aims. Smokestack snags the black lump from the air, expecting it this time though not completely certain of the Junkette's motivations. The coal crunches in his mouth, broken into more combustible chunks and powdery coaldust. "I have no interest in making a conscripted workforce more unhappy than is necessary for efficient working conditions. As long as the workforce lives, they do not need to be replaced. Therefore, it is most efficient to feed and house the humans to a tolerable level to avoid the need to replace them and train their replacements more frequently than their lifespan and endurance dictates." Dee-Kal distracts a little from her art, playing her game for a few moments. She gently throws yet *another* lump of coal to his mouth. Yup, to see if he catches it in his teeth. The towering mech catches it with his right hand instead. Catching in his mouth would be undignified! Crunching it, he adds "Plainly, the work of cybertronians would be more efficient. If those who call themselves Autobots were to volunteer to rebuild the homeworld under Decepticon supervision, there would be a vast reduction in the number of human captives required. However, they do not believe our path is the correct one, so they will not submit to our authority. Thus it is that they oppose us, our potential workforce is engaged in defending from them, and terrans must be employed to do what we are too occupied to." The young Junkion recalls from her text books that Megatron's motto used to be 'peace through tyranny'. Later it became 'everything is fodder'; fuel for the furnace of the Decepticon empire. He became more relentless and ruthless as the ages passed. A mental sigh. "Why can everyone not just get along..." "Because everyone is built a little differently. Minute variations in lasercore patterns give rise to different patterns of thought. This is a desirable trait: a clone race would stagnate. However, the inevitable consequence is that different conclusions are reached on important matters. Matters that are manifestly worth fighting for. If the Decepticon cause did not exist, fissures would eventually break the Autobots into splinter groups, and finally those groups would find a cause worth fighting for they disagreed on. War is inevitable." Smokestack spoke solemnly as he extolled his cynical, rather gloomy philosophy. Dee-Kal resumes her drawing, utilising chalk this time. "The problem with Cybertron..." she mutters. "It is obvious Septics are military while Autobots are commerce. Why you do not protect the Autobots, why they do not supply you; I do not know. The politics of Earth are diverse, sometimes it fails, but always something emerges to the benefit of all. Everyone smurfs together in some way. They *have* to because to stand alone or divided leads to the precise situation you are in. There are no passengers on this spaceship Earth; only crew. She looks up at Smokestack. "If I were falling. I call you. Would you rescue me?" The soot coloured machine stood silently for a second as he considered his response. Eventually, he rumbled "We cannot agree on the future. Nothing can be built between people who do not agree on what they are building. So we attempt to build our future, and they attempt to build theirs. The conflict between us continually tears down both. However, your view of this world's politics is far too pleasant. Some countries have ritualised the struggle between different groups in law, others do so with guns and weaponry. No country or group is at peace with itself. Open warfare always waits in the wings." He paused, then added "In any case, our original disagreements have grown a life of their own. There is too much conflict now. Both sides have become too extreme. Not all are as pragmatic as I am." Smokestack stood silently, dark grey smoke leaking from his stacks into a trailing finger against the sky. Finally, he spoke. "I do not destroy needlessly. I do not find you an overt threat. Until and unless it becomes necessary to destroy you, if I was not engaged in a matter that was more significant, I would prevent your careless destruction." Dee-Kal h'mphs, and sketches in more highlights. Zurich's domes, slender spires, gothic-style churches and grand neoclassical museums, renaissance castles and towers with nods to fortification; all become clear in her sketch of the view in the distance. "Look at the human city. Many different styles of building. Old, older. New and newest. They could simply replace with something more efficient, but they do not. Like the cannon we... you found. You value it." She makes some token adjustments to her work. "Everything ix mixed in... has equal importance." The young Junkion stands. "I am an Autobot conscript, not a recruit. I would have signed up... they have a high standard of education. But I was roped in because I am prepared to see grey where others see black or white. I did not follow Autobot rules. Now if I break those rules, I am disciplined like an Autobot rookie. She ponders. "Of course, if I signed up, I would be disciplined like a rookie anyway..." Smokestack watches her sketch with guarded interest, listening to her talk and analysing her words. His head tilts slightly and he asks "Are you making a point?" as a genuine question. "You are subject to their goals and philosophies. Do you agree with them?" Dee-Kal is used to chewing her pencil; a human gesture. She nearly eats the coal! Startled, she lowers the chunk before she makes that mistake. "Many years ago I was bored on *my* homeworld. Hai, impossible as it seems, me, a Junkion, bored. My district of Pleasantville, the Backlands... all they would smurf on TV were the original black and white reruns that everyone first saw when they intercepted the early signals from Earth." She sets the coal back in the pile. "I was not around for those early years, but I know every movie, every I Love Lucy and Leave It To Beaver. I have seen the Wizard of Oz and Flash Gordon so many times that it is burnt into my 'laser core'. And they were all I *ever* saw. I wanted to learn. I wanted to do things. But nooooo, nohow! All we did was smurf scrap into piles and watch the same shows. The rest of Junk had colour movies. Not me. Maw and Paw said there was nothing like the classics." She sings, parodying a movie "#Who could ask for anything more?#" then reverts to spoken. "..by the time I was in Forth Upgrade I was so angry I *left* home and I smurfed every TV set in Pleasantville I could find." Smokestack grunts, the sound resonating through his chest. "So you took up arms with the Autobots from boredom? It fulfils your stated goal of finding something to occupy yourself with. Whether it is something to satisfy you beyond novelty is another matter. Do you see yourself fighting for them for millions of years simply to stave off boredom? Warfare is just as dull as the place you describe, should you survive it for long enough." Dee-Kal arches a brow. "Iie, ja nai..." which is Japanese for 'no, not at all'. "Bad things happened..." She conveniently doesn't mention PO'ing a Sweep and getting shot up for it, "but I was rescued by my first Master, Pak-Gor sama. He took me back to his underground laboratory and showed me many science-is-fun things and answered questions and I saw cartoons - in real colour!" Short wings perk happily at the recollection. "And I never dreamed how wonderful Earth could be... so many things that move and live and grow and build and everything so blue... and green, and *white*...!" Dee-Kal stirs up a breeze, fanning the air with her wings. Smokestack nods, after a moment or two. "Variety is necessary. We all have our own interests. It is worth indulging in them, and seeing where they can be taken. The things I desire for myself allow me to continue when I tire of seeking ways to serve my greater and more permanent goals. I have left the homeworld for many millennia between visits, seeking out old and dead places to explore. For myself, alone." Dee-Kal settles. "But television is not enough for me. I love Earth. This planet is my home now. I want to know what the *people* know. I want to see them smurfing, ask my questions, get answers; discover for myself what it is to be a native, to see as they see, to explore and learn first-hand why fish shine like metal but are not, why some insects have such vivid colours - but no paint or pigments. To stand up inside a tree and watch as small objects, round as a pebble, crack and open... and there is a life inside! How did it get there? So many things to learn and see and *explore*" Dee-Kal casts a hologram-window; a movie of an egg in a nest. Time-lapse photography shows the egg twitch and jump a bit, then a chick forces its way out; limp, wet and bedraggled at first, then fluffing up (it still looks pretty ugly, but hey). "Then leave your faction." Smokestack said calmly. "What does it benefit you, to be chained to their ambitions? Your desires do not seem to overlap with theirs. If you call for their aid as an independent being, they will give it. I see little benefit remaining to you now that they have brought you here, and many rules and obligations. What else is there to weigh the balance towards being an Autobot? You do not have the drive to conquer my kind." Dee-Kal chalks in window highlights on a church in the cliff-sketch. "Autobots are colourful and shiny, they are smart. They laugh a lot, they smurf jokes. They watch TV and play music. They *help* the people here. Even if sometimes the way to help is to leave an area so... your faction leave too." She eyes Smoky over her sketching. "When there is no fighting they are more like a community. Strangers are rarely turned away, even if they impose on the resources of the faction. Everyone is worth something... and I supose *some* rules are okay... and I get lots of classes and homework..." "I do not care so much for Cybertron." She wrinkles her nose. "It is not *my* home. There are no cosy junk piles to smurf in or late night drive-ins. But it is my friend's home. And what affects them affects Earth. And that affects the humans here. And what affects Earth affects MY PLAYTIME-!" Dee-Kal makes a flourish under her sketch and signs her work; DK (AJ) '31 "True. Strangers are tolerated, even welcomed. Regardless of the resource drain required to look after them. Insufficiently guarded, too easily trusted." Smokestack shakes his head, choosing to let the line of argument fade. "You care little for my homeworld, only for this one. You believe that the Autobots will do a better job of warding it than my faction, and in that you are correct. You desire companionship from them, and their allies among the humans. This is reasonable. Thus, then, your actions are entirely consistent and reasonable to serve your goals." He nodded, once. "I will leave you now. I have goals of my own to pursue." Dee-Kal tilts her head. "I have a lot of coal left over here. I would prefer not to carry it back to where I... um..." Lavender optics turn pink. "...err, borrowed... it... from..." She looks sheepish. "Could you help hide the evidence? I do not wish to get told off again..." Smokestack strides over and gathers up the coal with his shovel like hands, fitting the majority of it into a storage compartment. Inclining his head, he engaged his antigravity generators and rose into the air. "Until the next time. We shall see if you can follow me so well."